Pubdate: Fri, 23 Sep 2005
Source: Similkameen Spotlight (CN BC)
Copyright: 2005 Similkameen Spotlight
Contact: http://www.similkameenspotlight.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3484
Author: Chris Buors
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v05/n1431/a04.html?118766
MARTIN SLAGGED FOR DRUG COLUMN
Editor:
Wherever did John Martin get the idea that more draconian punishments would
somehow deter the ruffians in charge of the drug black market?
I was stunned to get to the end of the diatribe on "meth producers getting
another break from do-nothing libs" to discover that for all the ignorance
I read, the author was not only an educated man, but a criminologist to boot.
Clearly, Martin has never read Lysander Spooner's timeless essay "Vices Are
Not Crimes" or he would understand the difference. In short, vices are
harms we do to ourselves and crimes are harms we do to another person or
their property, wrote Spooner in a vindication of moral victory.
On that criteria, the question arises that Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman
has been asking for over 40 years, why punish drug merchants at all? Why
not let all drugs be sold on the the free-market and make people personally
responsible for their drug-taking actions?
That is the only other option other than quadrupling punishments that are
the only actions available to hapless politicians, who should know better,
trying to control the vices of men by passing immoral laws.
They're immoral because they do not pass the temperance, prudence, justice
or fortitude cardinal virtues test of St. Thomas Aquinas.
As for a degree in "criminology" at the University College of Fraser Valley
where Mr. Martin teaches, do the students ever hear about the evils of
alcohol prohibition? The lessons are transferable to drug prohibition.
None of that is to mention the lessons of the Parable of The Fall which is
that the forbidden fruit always tastes sweeter. Does Mr. Martin not make
sure his charges understand the inherent lessons on prohibition taught there?
Chris Buors
Winnipeg, Manitoba
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom